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  Praise for the novels of Judith Gould

  'The perfect beach read.' — Library Journal

  'Just the thing to chase away the blues' — Chicago Tribune

  'A romp! A smash success.' — New York Daily News

  'Superb. . . Fantastic reading. . .put this one at the top of your must-read list.' —Rendezvous

  'Gould is a master.' — Kirkus

  A Novel of Romantic Suspense

  By Judith Gould

  Copyright 1992 by Judith Gould.

  Published by Vesuvius Media, LLC at Smashwords

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  Publisher's Note: This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used ficticiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  Novels by Judith Gould

  Sins*

  LOVEMAKERS - The Complete Unabridged Saga:

  Texas Born*

  LoveMakers

  Second Love

  Meltemi (Greek Winds of Fury)*

  DAZZLE- The Complete Unabridged Trilogy *:

  Dazzle The Trilogy Vol. I: Senda

  Dazzle The Trilogy Vol. II: Tamara

  Dazzle The Trilogy Vol. III: Daliah

  Never Too Rich*

  Forever*

  Too Damn Rich

  Second Love

  Till the End of Time

  Rhapsody*

  Time to Say Good-Bye

  A Moment in Time*

  The Best Is Yet to Come

  The Greek Villa

  The Parisian Affair*

  Dreamboat*

  The Secret Heiress*

  *(Available as an e-book)

  www.judithgould.com

  Cover design by Judy Bullard at [email protected]

  PUBLISHER'S NOTE & DEDICATION

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  For Etta Barritt and Guy Dolen, mother and son

  With sincere gratitude and acknowledgment for the hours spent opening the book of your lives and letting me plot and twist and varnish it to the needs of fiction:

  Because there really was a Good Eats Café in southwest Texas.

  Because there really was an 'Auntie.'

  But most of all, because every book needs a springboard, and your openhearted tales provided it—after which a lot of artistic license was taken by me.

  Needless to say, any crimes committed, the Sextons, and a host of other ingredients are entirely the stuff of fiction and my imagination.

  But even fiction finds its roots in the real world, and this background you have generously provided.

  PROLOGUE

  1924

  Quebeck, Texas

  1

  Even before the first light of dawn appeared in the sky Elizabeth-Anne hitched Bessie, her aging mare, to the buggy, climbed up on the wooden seat, and sat stiffly erect with that peculiar brand of dignity which was hers alone. With her pigskin-gloved hands she jerked the reins, and Bessie clip-clopped softly down Main Street, the dirt road that ran through the center of Quebeck and led out through the fields. Turning around, Elizabeth-Anne glanced back at the receding Good Eats Caf6. The windows glowed softly from the lamplight and she could see shadows shifting on the walls inside. That meant her three children were already up and moving about. Getting things ready to serve the townsfolk breakfast.

  She nodded to herself with satisfaction. Ever since she had been husbandless, the children had had to pitch in and help. Young though they were, they had done so without complaint. At least not to her face.

  Expertly she flipped the reins, and Bessie dutifully picked up speed. The morning air was brisk and fresh against her face now that she was riding along at a swift trot.

  She glanced up at the sky. The pockmarked moon was full and white, hovering low and bathing the town in an eerie silvery glow. She loved the chill early air, had learned at a young age to appreciate it. Later, as the sun began to rise, the air would become dry and baked and gritty, making it difficult to breathe, but right now it was wonderfully refreshing. She took a series of deep breaths, inhaling slowly, savoring the cold in her lungs.

  To either side of her, Main Street was lined with creaky gingerbread-fronted houses, hulking shadows behind tiny, dusty front yards. She stayed off-center of the dusty thoroughfare, avoiding the twin rails of the Quebeck Traction Company. If the wheels of her buggy hit the steel rails, they would skid and shimmy. She sighed to herself. Other towns had buses, but Quebeck still had its antiquated horse-drawn tram—a single small-gauge railroad car, roofed but open on all sides. The traction ran from the railroad station down Main Street, and looped around the northern end of town. What use that was, Elizabeth-Anne did not know. The northern tip of town was where the wealthier people lived, in freshly painted houses with stained-glass windows and porte cocheres—families that owned horses, buggies, and even motorcars. By all rights, the traction should have looped south, through Mexican Town; the Mexicans could ill afford to own even a scrawny mule and mean wagon. They needed the traction, not as a convenience, but a necessity. She herself had brought up the subject at numerous town meetings, but her efforts had fallen on deaf ears. Of course, not one Mexican had been present at the town meetings, or ever had been, for that matter. Quebeck proper and Mexican Town were treated as two separate entities coexisting in one small area, but with separate churches, shops, schools, customs, and laws. The people of Quebeck didn't care what went on in Mexican Town as long as its poor inhabitants didn't affect their lives—and the better-off whites wielded control. These injustices, and others like them, never ceased to rankle Elizabeth-Anne. It was a sad fact, but true: her efforts thus far had proved fruitless.

  At the eastern end of town, Main Street petered out into a single lane which led out across the fields, sparsely dotted with sage and cactuses. Elizabeth-Anne snapped the reins again, urging Bessie to quicken her pace. She was in a hurry. She wanted to be at the construction site long before anyone else. She liked to be able to poke into the corners of her unfinished buildings in peace and quiet. For that, she had to get there very early. The Mexican laborers liked to start work at daybreak, long before it got hot, so they could enjoy a siesta during the height of the noonday heat. Then, in the cooler late afternoon, the work would once again continue until nightfall.

  The dawn began to pale the blackness on the flat horizon, and the crystalline stars faded into the sky. By the time she neared the site, the sun was already starting to slide up from the east. She pulled on the reins and Bessie dutifully came to a halt.

  From her high perch, Elizabeth-Anne looked out across the countryside. Southeast lay the direction from which the new highway was slowly coming, two blue- black asphalt lanes being
laid down from Brownsville, at the mouth of the Rio Grande. In another three weeks it would reach as far as her property. Then it would continue on up northwest toward Laredo. She knew that it would be at least another year before it was entirely completed, but Elizabeth-Anne was a visionary and had learned to trust her instincts: cars had become commonplace, even in this sparsely populated patch of the southwest, and they would soon be using this new highway. Travelers journeying along it would need a comfortable, convenient place to stay the night.

  Which was why she was building the first tourist court in southwest Texas.

  Her aquamarine eyes narrowed as she nodded thoughtfully to herself. Then she permitted herself a rare smile. She was a beautiful woman, but the smile bespoke an inner strength and purpose strangers might fail to see. She was by necessity sturdy and strong. Her nose was thin and straight, and her waist-long wheat-gold hair, though enviously fine and abundant, was not shown off to advantage. For efficiency's sake she wore it tightly plaited and pinned up so that it wouldn't get in her way. Elizabeth-Anne Hale was, above all, a very proud, immensely practical, eminently capable, woman. She was also a woman Texas born and bred, with passions, dreams, and ambitions as vast as the state itself—if not more so.

  She felt a stirring within her belly, and she leaned forward and looked down at herself. Her trim hourglass waist had always been as tiny and wasplike as that of the most pampered society girl. But that had been before she had become pregnant again. Now her belly was majestically swollen and her breasts had become heavy with milk, soon ready for the suckling of her newest young.

  'Too bad your daddy couldn't have stayed around just a little bit longer,' she told her unborn child sadly.

  She touched her belly in silent communion. The baby was due in a couple of months. She closed her eyes and smiled beatifically as she felt another movement within her womb. A series of kicks, lively and restless, let her know that all was well, that the child she was carrying was impatient to greet the world.

  'Hey, settle down in there!' she jokingly chided. Then she sighed softly. She had stalled long enough. She snapped the reins tight again and Bessie trotted on. The construction site was a full two miles from town, yet another quarter of a mile across the fields. Already she could make out what was to be the tourist court, long and rambling, the rising skeletal timbers silhouetted against the sunrise like an ancient Greek ruin, and the sight of it filled her with an immeasurable sense of achievement and pride.

  She glanced to neither the left nor the right, but pressed her lips firmly together and kept her bright eyes focused straight ahead on the building which her ambition was driving her to erect. All the while, the gears of her mind turned and clicked as she thought of yet more ways to improve and expand that which she already had. In Quebeck there were the Good Eats Café and the Hale Rooming House—no way to make a fortune, mind you, but with hard work, a decent enough living. And soon, out here where the highway would pass, would be the tourist court. That, she realized, could lead to other things. Bigger things. Better things.

  Yes, she had come a long way.

  When she reached the site, she pulled in on the reins and climbed awkwardly down off the buggy, her full- length gray calico skirt just brushing the ground. She tied Bessie to a scrub bush and reached into her pocket for a lump of sugar. She held it out in the palm of her hand. The horse gently nuzzled it from her, its nostrils flaring appreciatively. She patted its long muzzle and then began on her rounds.

  Involved as she had been since the conception of her tourist court, she still couldn't help but feel impressed. Its very proportions dwarfed her. It was nearly two hundred feet long and fifteen wide. The walls weren't finished yet; the brick just went a third of the way up, and the rest was still the timber skeleton she had seen from far across the fields.

  The manager's cabin was directly in the center. It, too, was unfinished, but would consist of three rooms—an office flanked by a small bedroom and a kitchen. To either side of it were nine guest cabins— eighteen altogether. Each would boast a screened-in front porch and a private toilet with running water and a bathtub, and each cabin was separated from the next by a roofed parking space. These were virtually unheard- of, but something she was certain cars necessitated. After all, the southwest Texas sun burned strongly nearly all year round, and everyone with cars liked to park them in the shade, just as they would a horse. So shade she would provide. And she had intentionally made them much larger than they had to be. With typical foresight, she had envisioned that in time, not only would the reliability of cars increase, but their size as well.

  In addition, she had planned two billboards. Each would face the highway a quarter of a mile away in either direction of the tourist court. She could see them already. Hale Tourist Court. That was what the letters would spell, and to make certain that there was no mistaking the quality of the place, she would use a symbol—a gold crown—to assure weary travelers that the rooms were indeed fit for a king. Perhaps in time that crown would become as well-known in the area as the Coca-Cola script in the Quebeck General Store. She hoped so.

  She strode about briskly in her sturdy black lace-up boots. She had just turned twenty-nine years old, and the fact that she was one of the first enterprising businesswomen in America had never even entered her mind. Work was nothing new to her—it was, quite simply, a way of life. If required, she gladly rolled up her sleeves and did the lowliest of chores herself. People were amazed that a grass widow found the time and energy to raise three children properly while running two flourishing businesses and starting yet a third. The secret, Elizabeth-Anne had discovered, lay in the management of time and priorities—the delegation of authority and putting the most pressing, immediate problems where they belonged—right in the forefront. Besides, what choice did she have? Her husband was gone, and the children were a living reality. The facts had been like a smack in the face when Zaccheus had left her, but she'd had to accept them—cruel as they were—right then and there. Someone had to run the rooming house and the café, and she couldn't afford to hire anyone other than Rosa, the Mexican maid. Besides, the bank loan for the Hale Tourist Court had already been made and the construction begun. She couldn't stop in midstream, not if she wanted to repay the loan and be financially solvent. A woman on her own, no matter how young, wasn't left many choices, and certainly not a grass widow in southwest Texas. She was just grateful that the businesses were there and doing well. Otherwise . . .

  '. . . There's no time to contemplate any other tragedies that might happen!' she scolded herself harshly. 'This emotional rambling is one luxury you can't afford to indulge in!' And with that she resolutely swept the thoughts from her mind so that she could concentrate on the things for which she had driven out here.

  Holding on to the two-by-fours, she stood on tiptoe and leaned over the waist-high brick walls to look into each of the unfinished rooms. Carefully she took note of the progress. She grasped the doorframes in her nimble hands and tugged and pushed on them with all her might to check their sturdiness. Then she clapped the dirt off her hands and stamped her feet on all sixteen of the wooden porch platforms, checking to make certain that they, too, were well-built and would hold up. If you've got to build something, she opined, then why not build it to last?

  Her inspection finished, she hiked up her skirt and pushed the twenty yards through the dry yellow-brown weeds to where the highway would pass. She found the surveyors' marker without any trouble. For a while she remained there, her body leaning slightly forward, one hand held like a stiff salute against her forehead in order to shield her eyes from the glaring sun. Critically she analyzed the tourist court.

  Yes, she reflected for the hundredth time, it was symmetrical and pleasing to the eye. It looked like a comfortable rest stop—above all, there was a welcoming quality about it. She herself wouldn't mind coming across a place such as this if she had spent long, tiring hours on the road.

  Suddenly her eyes grew hard and her handsome featu
res creased into a frown. Something was missing. The tourist court which seemed to have everything could use yet something else. But what? She searched her mind and then shook her head in frustration and sighed. It disturbed her when her instinct hinted at something she couldn't put her finger on. Well, in time it would come to her, she thought. Sooner or later, it always did.

  2

  Minutes later, she heard the sound of an approaching horse. She turned around. Carlos Cortez had arrived on his old mare. He was the foreman she had hired, and he had turned out to be a good one, efficient and demanding, yet well-liked by the Mexican laborers.

  Elizabeth-Anne knew that she had made a good choice in putting him in charge rather than a white man. The laborers didn't resent taking his orders. They considered him to be one of them, yet looked upon him with admiration and respect. They felt that if anyone from Mexican Town made it to the other side of the tracks, it would surely be Carlos. He had gone away and worked his way through a big university, where he had studied engineering, and for this they were very proud of him. He was a feather in the Mexican community's cap, even if building projects where a Mexican engineer was welcome were virtually nonexistent.

  He was young and handsome too—perhaps too handsome for his own good, Elizabeth-Anne thought. He had the blue-black hair, dark glowing eyes, and bronze skin of the Mexicans, but his nose was surprisingly aquiline and his chin was square and determined. All the women in Mexican Town eyed him covetously, the young ones with open admiration, the older ones with hope and muttered prayers that one of their daughters would be blessed with the luck to be chosen as his bride. But for some reason known only to himself, he hadn't shown a preference for any particular girl yet.